- Have you ever sat down and wrote who your ideal client is for your therapy practice?
- Perhaps, you think your client is the child, which may be true for assessment or therapy but who will be searching for you and paying your fees?!
- Maybe you think anyone could come to you? But read on and you may change your opinion…
Let’s delve into helping you to understand who your ideal client is (sometimes it’s called a persona or avatar) and we’ll look at why it’s important for marketing on social media platforms.
This ideal client persona allows you to craft your marketing message appropriately to those who will potentially buy your services. After all, your message will be different depending on your target audience.
You need to include as much information as you can to really get to know who your ideal client would be. Remember this is if you could choose an ideal person to be your client, not every one of your clients will fit these criteria and there will be elements of stereotyping.
What do you include in an ideal client avatar?
- Make them real by giving them a name
- Age
- Gender
- Marital status
- Children
- Age of children
- Location
- Number of pets
- Types of pets/animals
- Income
- Education/qualifications
- Goals and value
- Books they read
- Challenges and pain points. By looking into their challenges and pain points, your business can look at solving their difficulties, ultimately buying your services.
Let me help by creating an example. A Speech and Language Therapist has set up an independent practice in London and is looking to target Solicitors for Medicolegal work.
Their ideal client may look like this:
- Name: John
- Age: 50
- Gender: Male
- Occupation: Education Solicitor
- Marital status: Married
- Children and age: Two Children
- Location: London
- Number of pets: 1
- Types of pets/animals: Dog
- Income: £55,000
- Education/qualifications: Degree in Law and completed a legal practice course
- Goals and value: to win cases for his firm’s clients, to work with other professionals to achieve this
- Social media platforms: LinkedIn for work
- Books they read: ‘The Happy Lawyer’, ‘How to win’
- Challenges and pain points: John doesn’t have access to any therapists in his team who can support his clients with their Education and Health Care Plan.
By having this information, you can start to build up a picture of your ideal client. You can then start to target the type of person you want to work with. You can also craft your message more effectively, and use content which you think your ideal client will engage with.
Your challenge should you choose to accept it, is to complete your very own ideal client avatar!!
The next blog will talk about content creation, stay tuned for some more social media marketing tips!!
Need support with designing your ideal client avatar?